GAMSAT cutoffs for Grad Medicine 2009

siobhank

anyone want to hazard any guesses?

For example, last year the cutoffs with c. 550 people were:

RCSI 58*
UCD 57*
UCC 56
UL 55

But we don't know what the Round Zero offers were i.e. how much those points came down by after all the Rounds were up.
Would have though that with c.650 people applying this year for the same amount of places the points would have to go up by one or two - which would mean a 57 minimum for UL?

Anyone got any thoughts?

ImDave

Has there been an increase in intake onto any of the programs? I keep hearing conflicting stories about UL's intake for 2009. I don't think there are any significant increases anyway...

siobhank

nope, due to cutbacks any increase has been inferred indefinitely including putting off NUIG's programme which was due to start next year

Boethius

I'd imagine you're not too far off with your logic siobhan, although we'll have a fairly good idea when round zero comes out friday week. Here's hoping it doesn't move too much..... are you waiting on an offer?

siobhank

nope, I'm doing it next year. A pal of mine is looking for UCD on a 57 which she thinks is pretty much unlikely. I am going to start the study in September anyway and aim for a 60.

eagle_&_bear

hey guys,

I'm sitting it Next March (2010) aswell.

I've gotten the ACER books. Anyone know of the GradMed prep course in January-March? good or bad?

BobbyOLeary

I've gotten the ACER books. Anyone know of the GradMed prep course in January-March? good or bad?

Hey there,

I did the GAMSAT this year during my final year in Physiology in UCD. I scored an overall score of 72; S1:63, S2:62, S3:82. The advice I've given everyone who's asked me is that you just study an awful lot. I dropped everything for the GAMSAT. From mid-January to the date of the test I studied flat out for the test, I realise that isn't possible for everyone to the same extent it was for me but you'll have to accept that other things in your life will have to fall by the wayside for a couple of months. I gave up on my 4th year project and my ability to get a 1st Class Honours but I wanted to be a doctor more than either of those things.

I don't really know how great those GradMed prep courses are, I didn't take one. I used Griffith's GAMSAT review, Organic Chemistry for Dummies, the ACER sample papers and got someone knowledgable to review my essays. I started doing crosswords everyday and reading books (I tend not to read fiction, or much at all really) for the English. You should have 3 sets of sample questions from all the ACER stuff, look through one of the sets and see how you fare at the questions, don't worry about times. This will give you an indication of what you need to study the most. Work these questions and similar ones found in College level texts until you can do them all without a problem. When I say that I don't mean just memorise the answer but be able to explain why thats the answer, big difference.

Same with English. Read the questions and go through the explanations at the back of the ACER books. Essays are a matter of practice and the most important piece is to practice these in a timed environment. This carries over to the MCQs as well, I remember people complaining that they didn't have time to finish the exam. Work out how much time for each question (they're all worth the same) and stick to it religiously. If you're faster, brilliant (I was), if you're slower, don't worry just move on.

You've got loads and loads of time until next March. Not so much if you're trying it in London. I'd still reckon though if you buckle down from now on that you can do quite well.

chirpy81

Hi,

briefly how does the scoring work, when you say 58 e.g. is that percent, 58 out of ? ...

thanks

BobbyOLeary

As far as I've been able to see the numbers themselves are part of some arbitrary scale. For example, my score of 72 equates to the 99th percentile for this year. ACER have always maintained that they're neither percentages OR percentiles. So in short, I've no idea what the scores mean, only that you want to hit 60 to be guaranteed a place.

Boethius

Apparently, ACER derived the scoring scale from a traditional Aboriginal method for estimating the number of grains of sand in the universe......;)

But in all seriousness, I read an article somewhere about the method and even with a background in maths it was too much effort to understand it